In some good news for NEET-PG aspirants who failed to meet the cut-off this year, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has decided that the cut-off will now be reduced by 15 per cent. This, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) said to the National Board of Examinations, was done in a bid to fill seats in PG colleges that are still vacant.
The Union Health Ministry has approved the reduction of cut-off by 15 percentile across all categories for the NEET PG exam. "After due discussion and deliberations, it has been decided by the MoHFW in consultation with the National Medical Council with prior approval from the Health and Family Welfare Minister to reduce the cut-off by 15 percentile across all categories. The qualifying percentile for the general category may be reduced to 35 per cent, for PH (Genl) to 30 per cent and for reserved category (SC/ST/OBC) be reduced to 25 per cent," said the MCC's letter to the NBE, signed by Dr B Srinivas, ADG (ME) and Member Secretary of the MCC.
"In view of the above, you are requested to kindly declare the revised result and send the revised result data of the newly eligible candidates to the office of the undersigned at the earliest," said the letter directed to NBE Executive Director Minu Bajpai. As per a report by the PTI, health ministry officials have said that the decision was taken in consultation with the NMC in view of approximately 8,000 seats still remaining vacant even after two rounds of all India and two rounds of state quota counselling. "The move aims to prevent seat wastage. With this reduction in percentile approximately 25,000 fresh candidates can participate in the mop round of the ongoing counselling," an official was quoted saying, by PTI.
Welcoming the government's step, Dr Rohan Krishnan, President of the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) Doctors Association, said "The examination was delayed twice due to COVID and the counselling process was also delayed due to the pandemic and court cases. This is the admission of the 2021 batch which is taking place in 2022 due to the delay. Still, over 6,500 seats are vacant so we were expecting such steps from the government," he said.
Talking about the impact that the reduction in the cut-off will have on the students, he said, "Reducing the cut-off does not mean reducing the merit criteria in any way."
